Courtesy of BSM Instagram

BSM sports, like volleyball, are competitive and have limited team spots, resulting in sometimes harsh cuts.

Much of the school spirit at Benilde-St.Margaret’s revolves around athletics, with several teams attending multiple state championships over the past few years for sports ranging from lacrosse to dance team to swim and dive. Whether trying out for hockey in the winter or lacrosse in the spring, there is a risk in many sports at BSM that students can be cut from school programs.

Tryouts can be rigorous, with multiple days and multiple tryouts per day. Tryouts are not only a time commitment but are also exhausting with all of the conditioning involved. “I think the lacrosse tryouts were kind of extensive, too long, a lot of lots of running. I think the coaches really expect a lot out of the girls,” junior Mazlow Moquist said.

Girls volleyball, on the other hand, only has one day of tryouts. Over the summer, there is training with the coaches so they can see the girls before tryouts. However, if a person is new to BSM and plans on trying out for volleyball but doesn’t know about the summer program, they might be at a disadvantage and would only be evaluated at one time (tryouts). “I think [one day tryouts are] kind of wrong, because if some people don’t know that they should do the summer [training], they might not… and then say they play bad, [there’s only] one try out. I think tryouts should be a week,” junior Sophia Black said.

For multiple sports, seniors can only make varsity, including volleyball, soccer, and lacrosse. Some coaches don’t want to cut seniors, so they may place them on varsity over a more skilled underclassman, whereas some coaches will make harsh cuts without regard to where seniors would play. “I don’t agree with cutting lower-classmen, especially if they’re better than upperclassmen. I feel like it should be equal, just because you’re a senior, I feel like you shouldn’t be on varsity,” junior Jun Vang said.

High school teams change every year as seniors graduate, so many coaches have goals to build a team over time by rostering a few players from each grade. Nonetheless, the majority of players are generally upperclassmen because underclassmen have more years of association left to play. “There were a lot of cuts for hockey, mostly because I was a freshman, and we all had another eligible year for association hockey, so they cut a lot of us,” Moquist said.

Unfortunately, some sports need to cut players because of limited spots on teams, not enough players to make another team, and various other reasons. Some believe that because BSM is a private school, students should always be given the option to play, even at a lower level. “I think it’s necessary to cut for volleyball, there’s just not enough spots for each team. But I don’t think it’s necessary to cut for every single sport, because if that was it, then some people just wouldn’t be able to play any sports at all, which is sad. … I think for the most part, there should be a balance of being cut and being able to play,” Black said.